Number of Women in Top School Posts Rises : Education: Females make up the majority of the county’s elementary principals. At some levels, change still comes slowly.

As an assistant principal at Royal High School in Simi Valley six years ago, Marjorie Blackburn applied to become principal at a local junior high school. She lost out to a man.

It was the seventh time that Blackburn had sought a promotion in the Simi Valley Unified School District and the seventh time she had been passed over in favor of a male applicant.

This time she sued the district for sex discrimination.

Blackburn never got that principal’s job. Ultimately, she left education and settled out of court with the district, which never admitted to any discrimination.

But her lawsuit left its mark.

Since 1990, when Blackburn began her legal fight, the Simi Valley district has dramatically increased the number of women school administrators in its ranks, including naming its first female high school principal in 1992 and its first woman superintendent last year.

And Simi Valley isn’t alone.

Most Ventura County school districts have in recent years significantly boosted the number of females in management posts. The county has gone from not having any female school superintendents 10 years ago to having five today. Women now make up the majority of the county’s elementary school principals and they hold half the top posts at junior high and middle schools.

But at some levels of administration, change is coming slowly.

Only six of the county’s 24 high schools and continuation schools have female principals. Although that’s six more than in 1984, it still means women account for only one-quarter of high school principals in the county, a far smaller representation than at middle and elementary schools.

One reason for the dearth of female high school principals may be, educators said, the persistent belief that only men are tough enough and strong enough to stop fights and handle discipline problems among high school students.

“There’s a general feeling that if you’re a male high school principal, you’d command more respect and have more authority,” said Joseph Spirito, superintendent of the Ventura Unified School District.

In contrast, women’s traditional role of nurturing young children allows them to be accepted more easily as elementary school principals. “Women do take care of small children,” said Blackburn, the former administrator in Simi Valley. “That’s accepted.”

Blackburn, who has since remarried and changed her last name, was 60 years old with a Ph.D. in education administration and 21 years of experience in Simi Valley schools when she applied and was rejected for the job of Sinaloa Junior High School principal in 1988. She had previously been passed over for six other administrative positions, including principal at Valley View Junior High School and Royal High.

At that time, Simi Valley had never had a women principal at either of its two high schools or its continuation school. And nearly all the principals at the district’s four junior high schools had been men.

Less than a year after Blackburn sued the district, she resigned from her job as assistant principal at Royal. She says now she was suffering from stress brought on by her deep frustration and anger at not being promoted.

She said she later settled with the school district for enough money to cover her legal costs and retraining for a new career.

Now working as a financial planner and licensed stockbroker in Camarillo, Blackburn said she believes women in education face the same hurdles as women in the private sector when they try to advance into positions traditionally held by men.

“You’re pushing that invisible ceiling,” she said. “And that club up there wants to remain private.”

If there was a club among top level school administrators in Simi Valley, it has become considerably less private since Blackburn filed her suit.

Six of the 11 highest-ranking officials in the district now are women, including the superintendent. Two of Simi Valley’s four junior high schools have female principals and Kathryn Scroggin became the district’s first female high school principal when she took over the top post at Simi Valley High School in 1992.

Similar changes are evident across Ventura County.

Since the 1983-84 school year, the number of women in the top posts at the county’s elementary schools has increased from 25% to 56%. And there are now women principals at 10, or 42%, of the county’s 25 junior high and middle schools, compared to only 3, or 12%, 10 years ago. In five of the county’s 21 school districts--Simi Valley, Pleasant Valley, Oak Park, Santa Clara and Briggs--women are superintendents.

Susan Thompson, an English teacher at Camarillo High School, said she has seen opportunities for advancement gradually open up to women during her 16 years in education.

“I think it’s coming,” said Thompson, who is working toward her credential to become an administrator. But, she added, “I think it’s very slow.”

In the past, Thompson said, the career path for women teachers who wanted to advance often ended at the school counseling office.

“Society was less accepting” of women in high-level administrative jobs, Thompson said. “They could accept women in a teaching position; they could accept women in a counselor’s position,” she said, but not in the principal’s office.

In addition, fewer women tried for the positions.

“I don’t think they were looking to be principals,” said Leean Nemeroff, assistant superintendent in the Conejo Valley Unified School District. And, she said, “part of it might have been they didn’t think they’d get the job so they didn’t try out for it.”

In addition, the longer hours worked by principals may have had little appeal to women teachers who were rearing young children.

In Simi Valley, for example, elementary school principals are scheduled to work 210 days per year, nearly six weeks longer than the 182 days worked by teachers. The contrast is even greater at junior highs, where principals work 216 days per year.

And at high schools, principals not only have to put in 226 days per year, nearly nine weeks longer than teachers, but they work many evenings, putting in appearances at athletic events, school dances and other high school events.

“This is a job that requires a lot of extra time,” said Joanne Black, principal of Hueneme High School in Oxnard.

Black, who became Hueneme’s principal last fall, said she never even considered advancing beyond teaching while her children were small.

Despite the increased time commitments of principal’s jobs, an increasing number of women are applying for such positions.

Bill Studt, superintendent of the Oxnard Union High School District, said he has noticed a significant increase in the number of women seeking principal’s jobs over the past five years. The district now has female principals at two of its six high schools and five female assistant principals.

And an increasing number of female teachers in the district are taking the necessary college courses at night and during the summers to get their administrative credentials, officials said.

“When I started in education 25 years ago, a lot of women who were in it were in it for the second income,” said Fillmore High School Principal Lynn Johnson.

“Today,” Johnson said, “there are (women) saying, ‘Yeah, I want an administrative position, I’m capable of an administrative position.”